Canada has a robust safety net for our most vulnerable citizens.

Yet across a wide range of human services — including health care, childcare and social housing — governments are increasingly facing clients with multiple and complex needs. And departments and agencies are being asked to improve services for these clients with flatlined budgets.

Is this even possible? Can governments provide more services, even higher-quality services, with fewer resources? A public service transformation of this very nature has been quietly taking place in the Peel Region of Ontario since 2007, and can now serve as a model for Canada’s provincial and municipal governments on how to do more with less.
The story of Peel Region is typical of many urban regions in Canada. The municipality has direct responsibility for the delivery of services but less budget flexibility than the federal government. Demands on human services are rising. The number of complex cases with multiple needs is going up. Yet as demands and expectations rise, budgets do not. Peel Region has weathered these challenges better than most.

The move to an integrated service delivery model has offered an effective way of simultaneously improving outcomes and putting human services on a fiscally sustainable path. It was not an easy task, but Peel Region changed the way it delivered human services.

Successful transformation was made possible because Peel had an attractive vision of improved public service delivery. With frontline staff, management and human resources specialists working together to deliver on a shared vision, Peel was able to keep service disruption to a minimum, sustain cost savings, make services more timely and accessible and deliver better client outcomes.

At the outset of its integration project, Peel Region’s corporate structure, which dated back to 1974, was poorly suited to supporting complex-needs clients. Children’s services, social assistance (Ontario Works), and housing services were delivered separately across two departments: Social Services (Ontario Works and Children’s Services) and Housing and Property.

This fragmented structure meant common clients with complex needs were difficult to identify. Each service area operated its own entirely separate client database and the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act hindered any inter-departmental exchange of client information.

There were systemic failures, little coordination and duplicated functions.

When delivery methods were streamlined and clients were offered a continuum of service (instead of dealing with separate social service silos), demand for expensive crisis services fell and clients left support services at a faster rate. “Single window” access to services proved to be more economical and more helpful to clients. Application processing times were dramatically reduced.

Other improvements included updated IT infrastructure improvements such as online application processes, and electronic file-sharing among program areas. Business, finance, and IT services were restructured to work together. Employees were consulted at every stage of the implementation plan, and worked with managers at each stage of the service integration.

Feedback from external stakeholders was, and still is, continually solicited, and has an influence as service delivery in the region continues to improve and evolve.

The issues and challenges that Peel Region saw and addressed are a reality throughout Canada.

The strategies implemented by this forward-thinking region are now a valuable roadmap for other provincial and municipal governments undertaking large-scale service reform during a time of fiscal restraint. It’s not just a regional success story — it’s a guide and template for transformation.

As Peel Region has demonstrated, doing more with less is not a fantasy, but a desirable and achievable plan for governments everywhere.

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Read the full report: Integrating Human Services in an Age of Fiscal Restraint: A Shifting Gears Report